Publishing a book for the first time can feel a bit overwhelming. After writing, editing, and formatting your manuscript, you have one more challenge: choosing book categories and keywords to help readers find your new title.
This free tool will help make that process easier for you. It’s a practical idea-generation tool to help you avoid staring at empty boxes without knowing what to enter.
Use the suggestions as a starting point, then refine them to suit your book, genre, and target readers. The tool can help whether you are publishing through Amazon KDP, Draft2Digital, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, or another platform.
While choosing the best possible categories and keywords involves much deeper research, getting relevant ideas quickly is a useful first step toward making your book easier to discover.
Your quick start for selecting book categories and keywords
If you don’t want to spend hours researching your book metadata, use this tool to help you generate useful ideas in seconds.
Book Category & Keyword Generator
Optimize category selection & search keywords for Amazon KDP, Draft2Digital, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble
All you need to do is enter some basic details about your book, including the title or title and subtitle, a broard category, a trope or sub-theme, and two or three possible keywords.
You don’t need to provide a detailed description or complete research notes. Just the basics are enough to get started.
When you click Generate, the tool creates category and keyword ideas you can consider before publishing your book.
You’ll see two panels of results: one for Amazon KDP, and another for wide distribution using Draft2Digital, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble.
You can use the copy buttons for individual suggestions, or the button at the bottom to copy all the generated metadata ideas.
Think of the results as suggestions rather than final answers. Every book is different, and the best choices will depend on your genre, audience, and where you plan to publish.
One of the biggest mistakes new authors can make is leaving important metadata fields empty when publishing a book.
This tool helps you create ideas for those fields so you can make better-informed choices before you publish.
What to know about selecting keywords and categories
Most publishing services use BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) codes or genres for classifying a book.
Categories and keywords help publishing platforms understand what your book is about and help readers discover books that match their interests.
If you publish with Amazon KDP, you can select only three categories. However, KDP has two different category systems: one for Kindle ebooks and another for paperback and hardcover books.
This means you can choose different categories for the ebook and print versions of your book.
Other self-publishing services vary in how many categories you can select. Some allow several options, which is why this tool generates multiple category ideas you can choose from.
The biggest mistake when choosing categories is selecting only broad base categories such as romance, science fiction, or fantasy. These areas are highly competitive and may not accurately describe the type of book you have written.
Whenever possible, look for more specific niche categories that match your book and its intended audience.
The tool includes 26 of the most popular fiction and nonfiction categories and 338 carefully curated category paths. While it doesn’t cover every possible book category, it gives most authors a practical and reliable starting point.
If you want to research further, you can explore more detailed category options on your chosen publishing platform.
For search keywords, Amazon KDP provides seven keyword fields of up to 50 characters each, which this tool takes into account.
Remember that keywords can be short phrases, not just individual words. For example, a phrase that describes a specific reader interest can often be more useful than a single broad term.
The tool automatically filters out terms prohibited by Amazon KDP guidelines, such as “bestseller,” “new,” or repeated title words.
Other publishing services often ask for keywords in a comma-separated list. The tool also generates ideas in this format so you can adapt them for different publishing platforms.
Your first choices don’t need to be perfect. Use the suggestions as a starting point, then refine your categories and keywords as you learn more about your readers and your market.
This tool helps new authors get started with selecting categories and keywords.
It is not intended to replace advanced publishing research tools that offer detailed market analysis, competition data, and keyword research.
If you want to take your research further, you may want to explore more advanced tools that offer deeper market analysis, competition research, and keyword insights.
For example, you can read my full Publisher Rocket review to learn more about how it can help with advanced book research.
However, many new authors simply need a practical starting point to create useful ideas and complete their publishing information with confidence.
The most important step is to avoid leaving category and keyword fields empty. A few relevant suggestions are usually much better than having no information at all.
Summary
Publishing a book involves many decisions, and choosing categories and keywords can feel confusing for first-time authors.
After all the work involved in writing and preparing a manuscript, it can be frustrating to reach the final publishing steps and not know what information to enter.
This free book categories and keywords generator gives you a quick way to create useful ideas before you publish, whether you are using Amazon KDP, Draft2Digital, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, or another platform.
The suggestions give you a practical starting point, not a guaranteed formula for success. Every book is different, and the best choices will depend on your genre, your readers, and your publishing goals.
For new authors, the most important step is simply getting started and making informed choices. Using relevant categories and keywords is far better than leaving important metadata fields empty or guessing without guidance.
Related Reading: 10 Smart Things To Do After Self-Publishing Your Book
English teacher, writer, and author. Passionate about grammar, creative writing, and self-publishing. Always exploring new tools and tech to help writers succeed.
